Exploration Through Example

Example-driven development, Agile testing, context-driven testing, Agile programming, Ruby, and other things of interest to Brian Marick

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Sat, 17 Feb 2007

Chet's idea - training for charity

At SDTconf, there was a session on how to improve skills. It is too easy for people to come into a job not knowing enough and then get stuck at that level. Perhaps they deserve being stuck; perhaps they should be studying on their own. Nevertheless, they aren't, and their lack of skill sometimes (often?) prevents really successful Agile projects from forming.

What to do, given that your typical 2-3 day course delivers some knowledge and some motivation, but not skill?

Chet Hendrickson had an idea. This is how I remember it:

• Find a deserving charity that needs software. Some stable organization (such as the Agile Alliance) offers to build it for them. The charity has to promise to be involved: onsite customer, for example. The project would have to be located where the charity is.

• The project would be started and anchored by people who really know Agile.

• Corporations, especially big ones, contribute to charities. Sometimes they contribute the time of some of their people. We'd be asking them to contribute two weeks of the time of software people to our project.

• Those people join the project at staggered one week intervals (so that each week has some "old timers" and some new people).

• They learn by doing.

I'd like to be involved in this, but I don't see myself starting it up.

## Posted at 05:24 in category /agile [permalink] [top]